Archive for the ‘Economic Blight’ Category

Hark! A throne sits vacant, and not just in the kingdom of Pop. As you citizens know, there is an important vacancy in our glorious kingdom of Pitchland following the death of the legendary bearded one, Billy Mays.

In keeping with Pitchland’s bylaws, the new King will be selected by out of a group of promising plebs. The selection ceremony will be conducted in the strictest of confidences by the glorious Pitchland council, including the likes of Bob Villa and Tova. As it was written in the long, long ago, the new King will be announced for the first time at the coronation ceremony when Merlin Jack LaLanne touches his sceptre upon the shoulders of the chosen one.

I understand the fact that the Suns are no longer contenders – I’ve accepted it. Phoenix had the 6th highest payroll in the NBA last season and missed the playoffs, it isn’t exactly a recipe for success. While I think they were in fact much better than their record – Amare Stoudemire’s injury, Terry Porter’s existence, along with injuries to Steve Nash and Leandro Barbosa hurt them quite a bit – even if they had been healthy and playing under Alvin Gentry for an entire season they would not have won a championship. Thus I’ve accepted that Shaq needed to go in order to clear some payroll to make the team younger. However this Amare to Golden State crap is ridiculous. The original rumor was that Golden State would give up 7 foot Ivan Drago-clone Andris Biedrins (he of the 11 pt – 11 rebound averages), 3rd year underachiever Brandan Wright, summer league superstar Marco Belinelli, and the 7th overall pick in the recent NBA Draft – Stephen Curry. I am not crazy about, nor do I even like, that deal. If those players were so talented Golden State probably would have cracked the THIRTY win mark. (more…)

Here at SoD, we celebrate the dark arts. And, there is no darker art than Cosmology. Which makes what I have to tell you all the more unsettling:

The Earth is going to collide with Venus.

After a very brief 3.5 billion-year courtship, Earth and Venus decide to get it on. Is there any decency left in the Universe?

Well, maybe. Actually there is only a 1% chance this could occur — 3.5 billion years from now.

The cause of this disaster is a little known phenomenon called “orbital chaos.” Sounds like a 70’s prog rock band, right? Nope. It is the tolling bell of doom for your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandkids/cyborgs.

So there you have it. Feel free to lose your job, drink yourself into oblivion, and plunge the stock market into the depths of the abyss. Wait, you’ve already done that? Well, say what you will about Earthians, but we aren’t procrastinators when it comes to planning our own demise.

You are all free to head up to Snowbowl again this year to destroy the bottom of your skis on the slushee/rock/sewage mixture they call snow. The United States Supreme Court refused to consider a long-standing dispute between several Native American tribes and Snowbowl Ski Resort in Flagstaff, AZ. The problems arise out of Snowbowl’s practice of making artificial snow out of treated wastewater when Flagstaff’s snowfall is peculiarly routinely insufficent to support the resort. I don’t know about you, but this offends me as skier and a pure snow addict.

This is pure snow! Do you have any idea what the street value of this mountain is?

In the midst of this summer of discontent that the 2009 D’backs’ season, there is a glimmer of hope for the D’backs, a silver lining to Chris Young’s .174 batting average: If you sing semi-popular and outdated rock songs, they will come.

The one constant through all the years, Ray, has been the annual baseball summer concert series. America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It has been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt and erased again. But the summer baseball concert series has marked the time. This field, this game; these semi-popular rock acts: they are a part of our past. They remind us of all that once was good and that it could be again. Oh… people will come, Ray. People will most definitely come.

The Phoenix Mercury, one of the WNBA’s 13 currently-struggling franchises, have sold out to Tempe-based Lifelock in an effort to stay afloat. The identity theft protection corporation will pay the team $1M to replace the “Phoenix” and “Mercury” with the corporate logo on game jerseys. The Mercury are the first team to utilize a WNBA policy change, called the “Energizer Presents the Mattel Corporate Sponsorship Bill,” that will allow corporate sponsors a level of advertising currently unprecedented in U.S. professional sports (except golf, tennis, soccer, bowling, and auto racing).

In the Words of Michael Jackson, "Dirty Diana, LET ME BE!"

At our friend AZCentral, one columnist suggests this is a harbinger for similar corporate access in “higher-profile” leagues. (more…)

Controversial 1995 West Regional Champion with the winning word "couch."

Thirteen-year-old Kavya Shivashankar of Olathe, Kansas claimed this year’s award for the biggest destroyed childhood — also known as the Scripps National Spelling Bee Champion. Her winning word: Laodicean (FYI – spell check doesn’t even freaking recognize this word.) Laodicean, as we all know, means “the dicean.” Recently, the difficulty of the words has skyrocketed due to crazy parents forcing their kids to memorize words non-stop the rise in the ability of the contestants. Check out Wikipedia for some of the winning words from bees past. Definitely no freaking “laodiceans” in there. By the way, my favorite time period is 1934 through 1940 as the winning words paint a sorrowful and chronological diary of the everyman’s experiences in the Great Depression:

1934: “Deteriorating” – The economy is starting to go south. I am worried.

1935: “Intelligible” – Everyone claims they can fix it. I don’t know.

1936: “Interning” – If only I could get my foot in the door at a company. I’d consider working for free to start.

1937: “Promiscuous” – I don’t want to be this way. But, I need to ease the pain of poverty.